Towards a description of coextensiveness in lexis organization in Brazilian Portuguese

uma introdução descritiva a partir de uma abordagem sistêmico-funcional

Abstract

This paper aims at identifying principles of lexis organization under a functional approach based on corpus evidence. problems with the modular and delicacy approaches to lexis – i.e., lexis as filling for grammatical structures or most delicate grammar – motivate the paper as they need further elaboration to describe the internal processes of lexis as a dimension of language, as well as lexis relations to discourse and context. the paper goes on to explain transformation processes integrating lexis and language systems, as lexis is coextensive to system in the grammar and register strata. transformation processes of grammar and register are investigated and lead to the development of protocols of processes internal to lexis. results show how the protocols can reliably account for the generation of lexical items to a given register. this, in turn, sheds light into lexis internal organization.